Image Macros: Intro to LOL Cats

I've long been interested in Image Macros, which are best described as web based images with text superimposed on them. Okay, that's a poor description. Here's an example:

Image Macros apparently started as web forum responses -- a way to respond to a message with an image containing some embedded textual content (the image at left says "Oh Really?"), rather than typing a response. But, like many things on the web, things get out of hand quickly: there are many subgenres which continue to evolve daily.

This week I'll explore some common forms of Image Macros. First up: LOL Cats are Image Macros featuring cats, and boy are there a lot of them. In general, they anthropomorphize the cat in the photo, sometimes using purposely bad grammar (conjugation seems to be a real problem for the cats) or web-speak. Here's an example of a LOL Cat that kicked off its own subgenre:

Many more after the jump.

There are many varieties of LOL Cats (which are themselves a subgenre of Image Macros), and we'll explore some major forms starting tomorrow. But for now, here's a selection of classics (at least, classics to me):

Some of these images are snagged from I Can Has Cheezburger, a blog which catalogs all forms of LOL Cats (the blog is named after this image). Many others come from flightpad.net. You'll see more of the grammar weirdness/web-speak later this week.

Also on Mental Floss:

DID YOU KNOW? Marlon Brando hated memorizing lines so much that he posted cue cards everywhere to help him get through scenes.
He even asked for lines to be written on an actress's posterior. (That request was denied.)